Posted on 02/25/2025 8:40:32 PM PST by SeekAndFind
The Seattle homeless population is the tragic result of failed policies. But it’s not just a problem — it’s a manufactured disaster, enabled and exacerbated by left-wing policies that have done nothing but invite more homelessness while refusing to address its root causes. A new study from the Discovery Institute’s Fix Homelessness explains how dire the situation truly is in Seattle.
The study lays out in devastating detail how Seattle’s approach has not only failed but made everything worse. The city’s leaders, obsessed with progressive ideology over practical solutions, have created a system that draws homeless individuals from outside the region and keeps them trapped in an endless cycle of addiction, crime, and dependency.
The data is alarming.
According to the study, nearly 50% of the Seattle homeless population became homeless outside of the city or King County. They came here because Seattle has built a reputation as a haven for the homeless — offering free tents, enabling open-air drug use, and refusing to enforce laws against encampments.
A stunning 86.6% of the homeless population was born outside of Seattle or King County. Nearly 67% of the homeless neither currently have, nor ever ever had, family living in Seattle or King County. Even more telling, 80.2% of them didn’t even attend high school in the area.
The study found that the city has shifted its entire funding structure away from emergency shelter and recovery programs in favor of “permanent supportive housing.” The result? A 282% increase in overdose deaths inside these housing units between 2020 and 2023. King County reported that nearly half of all overdose deaths in 2023 were among the homeless population, many of them in these so-called “supportive” housing units.
And it’s only getting worse.
Seattle’s leaders don’t require treatment for addicts before they receive housing. They’ve actively redirected funds away from emergency shelter and transitional housing, even as unsheltered homelessness has surged. They’ve adopted a one-size-fits-all approach that assumes every homeless person is just a down-on-their-luck tenant rather than someone struggling with addiction or mental illness. And it means it doesn’t fit anyone. Perhaps worst of all, they’ve refused to enforce basic laws—allowing encampments to spread across parks, sidewalks, and residential neighborhoods, turning once-thriving communities into dystopian tent cities.
Prioritize treatment over subsidized housing. Instead of flooding the city with more subsidized apartments that turn into de facto drug dens, Seattle must invest in addiction recovery. That means funding detox centers, inpatient rehab programs, and sober-living communities where people actually get the help they need.
Stop incentivizing homelessness. Seattle is an open invitation for anyone across the country looking for a free ride and no rules. The city must end unlimited benefits for people with no ties to the region. That means prioritizing services for those with roots in Seattle—those who actually lived, worked, or had family here before becoming homeless.
And enforce the law. The recent Grants Pass v. Johnson Supreme Court decision gives cities the authority to ban homeless encampments, yet Seattle still refuses to act. It’s time for a zero-tolerance policy for illegal encampments — combined with rapid, mandatory placement in treatment programs for those suffering from addiction or severe mental illness.
The Left’s “compassion” is nothing more than cruelty wrapped in a feel-good slogan. Until the city abandons its failed progressive experiments and adopts a reality-based approach, Seattle’s homelessness crisis will continue to spiral out of control.
And if you think this disaster will stay contained within Seattle’s borders, think again. Take a look around.
every homeless person on a street in the south should be given a bus ticket to California to live the sweet life of benefits there. Or in this case Seatle.
Can other big cities on the left coast be far behind?
Live near, and worked in Portland. A big chunk of the “homeless” are what the police call “Transients”. Young adults that are anti-establishment . They chose to live on the streets. Transients in that they are like migratory birds. CA and AZ in the winter. Then travel to Eugene, Portland, Seattle in the Summer. Not much rain, temps in the mid to upper 70’s. Ands lots of aid to them.
Mr. Rantz is wrong. The Left doesn’t want to solve the problem. They know all about his suggestions. They know they will work. They just won’t do it. They want the crime, squalor, and disorder.
That wouldn’t be surprising at all.
It is subversive.
The sidewalk pirates are big users of drugs from the Drug Cartels. Seattle’s Leftnick politicization act as if they are being paid off by the Drug Cartels. Anything they can do for the Cartels must be money in the bank.
There is too much funding available to fix the problem.
More vagrants = more funding = more bureaucracy = more votes.
That’s fascinating. They sound like the 1950s and 1960s Beat Generation. Underachievers in menial jobs after losing faith in the Grey Flannel Suit and Status Seekers around them.
Except those were often WWII or Korean War veterans, were usually patriotic for the USA and produced art, jazz music and much literature (likable or not). On the Road was selected as one of the 100 essential novels of the century.
In China a part of the younger generation is now practicing the trend of “lying flat”——dropping out like the hippies in the US in the 1960s.
“The idea of ‘lying flat’, or tang ping in Chinese, means taking a break from relentless work. The tang ping movement took off during 2021 as many felt they were coming under increasing pressure to work even harder and out perform their peers.”
BBC.
It’s a city...who cares. Almost all cities are liberal shxtholes run by liberal shxtheads. Rampant crime, LGBTWRSTUVWXYZ freak show havens, deeply in debt and basically they have that rotting stench.
A couple decades ago there was a black homeless couple in ND city that just walked up and down Broadway most of the day. The woman had hair down to her rear end. The guy mostly gave the middle finger to any vehicle passing by him. They lived off of public charity. It was disgusting, flipping off the very people feeding them.
A local church paid their way to a new location several states away. They came right back. Then a few months later they just disappeared. It was speculated someone just had enough.
Far too many big city democrat machines are focused not so much on problem solving as they are on access and control of the city’s treasury. The bigger the problems are the more “aid” arrives with little or no accountability for how or where it is actually used.
That appears to be a cartoon image - but it is not. That is a stylized version of a photo of a camp in West Seattle taken by a drone that was covering a story on auto thefts. The owner flew a drone over his car which he tracked after it was stolen.
The camp had numerous stolen cars being taken apart and sold for parts. IIRC the police didn’t do anything.
There is a reason there are “Don’t Feed the Bears” signs at campgrounds.
If you support them, they will come.
Madison, Wisconsin did a similar self-destructive action in the ‘70s.
Some self-righteous pukes in the city council complained that Madison was the only city of its size in the USA that didn’t have social workers. Despite being told that they didn’t need them, they managed to get the city to hire some to assess the needs on a temporary basis. Those temps immediately requested funds to visit areas in the south to research the situation. The council foolishly allowed this and the temps went south.
Within a month, busloads of unemployed poor families started arriving in Madison, asking for directions to the welfare office. Suddenly, Madison had a poor population, a liberal judge ruled instant residency and a crushing need for social workers.
One family, Mother, Father, two sons and two unmarried daughters with their three children were placed in our neighborhood. The Mother, Father and the sons and an adolescent daughter right next door and the two unmarried daughters and their three children a block away (Because they needed the dignity of their own home.).
Within a few years, the two sons had three rape convictions and incarcerations to their credit. And the journey of Madison, Wisconsin from the most attractive city in the USA in the ‘50s to the shithole it now is.
The data is alarming.
Another case of mission accomplished. These are not flaws in the system. They are features. The socialist agenda is to screw up as many people as possible, degrade society as much as possible and spend as much taxpayer money as possible. The socialists love it.
Wow, amazing. Deep into third-world stuff—not just a tent city, but illegal businesses.
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